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The feds had lots of fingerprints ... 80 years ago

By: Linda Deitch

The Columbus Dispatch - September 24, 2013 09:23 AM

Here's something interesting sent out to the press in 1933 from the "United States Bureau of
Investigation, Washington D.C., J. Edgar Hoover, Director," touting its "Identification Division,
Part of Technical Section. "

(The Dispatch photo archives not only contain images taken by our staff photographers, but also
decades of publicity stills and other handouts, such as this one.)

Information on the back of the print says: "4 million fingerprints are stored here. They are so
well classified that new prints can be matched with those previously received in five minutes in
ordinary cases."

J. Edgar Hoover was the first director of the FBI. He was appointed director of the U.S.
Bureau of Investigation (the predecessor to the FBI) in 1924, and was instrumental in founding the
FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972 at age 77. Hoover is credited
with modernizing the FBI yet is a highly controversial figure.

* * *

The source of the print is the Acme photo collection, which the Dispatch library acquired in
1989. The collection became available after the Acme News Agency was bought by Newspaper Enterprise
Association (NEA) and Acme’s Cleveland bureau was shut down.

The photographs cover people and subjects from about 1910 to 1976. The sources of the photos
were Acme News Photos, Central Press, International Photo Service, The Cleveland Press, publicity
stills and the U.S. government.

We hope you enjoy the photos from this collection as much as we do here at the newspaper.